OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES GeneralEditors GillianClark AndrewLouth THEOXFORDEARLYCHRISTIANSTUDIESseriesincludesscholarlyvolumeson the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. Covering a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theologians, ancient historians,andspecialistsintheclassicalandJewishworlds. Titlesintheseriesinclude: TheMinorProphetsasChristianScriptureintheCommentariesof TheodoreofMopsuestiaandCyrilofAlexandria HaunaT.Ondrey(2018) PreachingChristologyintheRomanNearEast:AStudyofJacobofSerugh PhilipMichaelForness(2018) GodandChristinIrenaeus AnthonyBriggman(2018) Augustine’sEarlyThoughtontheRedemptiveFunctionofDivineJudgement BartvanEgmond(2018) TheIdeaofNicaeaintheEarlyChurchCouncils,431–451 MarkS.Smith(2018) TheManyDeathsofPeterandPaul DavidL.Eastman(2019) VisionsandFacesoftheTragic:TheMimesisofTragedyand theFollyofSalvationinEarlyChristianLiterature PaulM.Blowers(2020) Art,Craft,andTheologyinFourth-CenturyChristianAuthors MorwennaLudlow(2020) NemesiusofEmesaonHumanNature:ACosmopolitan AnthropologyfromRomanSyria DavidLloydDusenbury(2021) The Cult of Stephen in Jerusalem Inventing a Patron Martyr HUGO MÉNDEZ GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©HugoMéndez2022 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2022 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2022938770 ISBN 978–0–19–284699–0 DOI:10.1093/oso/9780192846990.001.0001 Printedandboundby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY Tomylovingparents, HugoandIda Preface and Acknowledgments ThisbooktracestheriseofaculttoSt.StephentheProtomartyrinthefourth-and fifth-century city of Jerusalem. It argues that local church authorities promoted devotion to Stephen in an orchestrated attempt to reposition the martyr as a patronsaintfortheircity—thatis,asymbolicembodimentofitsChristianidentity andpower. ThefirstwordsofthismanuscriptwerewrittenatYaleUniversity’sInstituteof Sacred Music, where I had the immense privilege of being a Postdoctoral AssociateinSacredMusic,Worship,andtheRelatedArts.Yearslater,itisevident tomehowdeeplythemanuscriptbreathestheinterdisciplinaryspiritoftheISM, not least in its attention to liturgical and material evidence. My first words of thanks,then, are directed to Martin Jean, Teresa Berger, and Bryan Spinks,who invited me to that two-year fellowship and who mentored my research in its embryonic stages. But my gratitude extends so much further, to so many other faculty members, fellows, and graduate students in New Haven who enriched my thinking at various stages of this project, exposed me to important research, and offered their constructive criticism on my earliest drafts of this manuscript. While at Yale, I was immersed in the most stimulating academic community one can possibly imagine—one that daily challenged me to think more creatively and synthetically. Among so many individual friends I could thank—and they are truly too numerous to list—Andrew Albin and Paul Bradshaw deserve special mention for having remained interlocutors for the project in subsequent years. I also cannot fail to thank Dale Martin for his consistentencouragement. I continued and eventually completed this project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—first as a Carolina Postdoctoral Fellow for Faculty Diversity and subsequently as an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. I will never understand the providence that allowed me to transition from Yale to a second,equallyoutstandingcenterforthestudyofearlyChristianityinUNCand Duke,butitwashere—intheintellectuallyrigorouscommunitythatIamnowso gratefultocallhome—thatIfoundthesupportandresourcestobringthisproject to its final form. Immediately, I must single out Bart Ehrman for praise—as spectacularly devoted a mentor as one could have. But I cannot fail to thank othercolleagues here—from Karen Hagemann,whohelped mefindmyvoice in this manuscript, to Randall Styers and other members of the Department of Religious Studies at UNC for their insights and constant encouragement. Amongourgraduatestudents,Iowespecial thankstoMichelleFreemanforher viii    keen interest in this work and sharp editorial eye, and among my friends, I will alwaysbeindebtedtoMitchellEssweinandGarrisonCopelandforreadingdrafts of this work. I am also profoundly grateful for the support of Sibby Anderson- Thompkins,JenniferPruitt,andmypeerfellows. This work has also had other readers and interlocutors, many from scholarly societies.Iamespeciallyindebtedtothealwayssharpandrigorousfeedbackofthe “Problems in the Early History of Liturgy” seminar in the North American AcademyofLiturgy,singlingoutHaraldBuchingerandJohnBaldovinforspecial thanks.FromtheSocietyofOrientalLiturgy,IowethankstoGabrielRadle,Mary Farag,andDanielGaladza.Ialsoreceivedimportantfeedbackonsectionsofthis manuscript at annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature. I cannot express my gratitude enough to David Eastman for helping me conceptualize my project at an early stage in its development, and I would also like to thank NathanielP.DesRosiersforhis prepared andgenerativeresponsetoaparticular presentation of my work. I am also grateful to Damien Labadie for generously sharinghisrecentworkinthefinalstagesofproducingthistext. Lastly, I am profoundly grateful to the many, many loved ones who have supported me across this journey—too many to count. But among these, I owe my deepest debt to my loving father and mother, whose endless generosity and sacrifices are the ink with which every page of thisbook is written. It is to them thatIdedicatethisbook. Ihaveattempted,asfaraspossible,towriteabroadlyaccessibleEnglishtext.For thisreason,allquotationsfromancientandmodernsourcesinthebodytextappear in English. Most are cited from existing translations to avoid any appearance of idiosyncrasy,thoughsomearemyownandnotedassuchinmyfootnotes.Since mostancientworksIuseareavailableinaccessiblecriticaleditions,Igenerallyavoid reproducingtheiroriginal-languagetextinmyfootnotes,exceptforthoseItrans- latedmyself.Eventhen,IoffertheoriginaltextonlyforGreekandLatintexts,and not in lesser-studied languages such as Classical Armenian. In the case of Old Georgianmaterials,Ihavereliedentirelyonexistingtranslations.Englishtransla- tionsofbiblicaltextsgenerallyfollowtheRevisedStandardVersion(RSV),except thosefromtheLXXorreproducedfromsourcessuchastheArmenianLectionary. Since this book was written across several years, it incorporates research I developed in several intersecting projects. Three in particular have contributed directly to the text of this manuscript. Specifically, chapter 2 incorporates and updates text from Hugo Mendez, “The Origin of the Post-Nativity Commemorations,”VigiliaeChristianae68(2014):290–309;chapter5incorpor- ates and updates text from Hugo Méndez, “Stephen the Martyr (Acts vi–viii) in theEarlyJerusalemLectionarySystem,”JournalofEcclesiasticalHistory68(2017): 22–39;andchapter6incorporatesandupdatestextfromHugoMéndez,“Revising the Date of the Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 29(2021): 61–92. Inseveral instances,Ihave been grateful to revisit and refinemyearlierviewstointegratenewerinsights.Ihopethisbookprovesallthe morehelpfultoitsreadersbecauseoftheseupdates. Contents ListofAbbreviations xi Introduction 1 1. ThePrestigeofStephen 18 2. TheEarlyCult 31 3. ACelestialPatron 59 4. TheBones 77 5. MoreNumerousFeasts 100 6. AVeryGreatSanctuary 129 Epilogue 152 Bibliography 155 IndexLocorum 169 TopicalIndex 172